A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">SESSION TWO: ANATOMY

SESSION THREE: EARTH ELEMENT

LUNCH

SESSION FOUR: AIR ELEMENT

SESSION FIVE: HEALING

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SESSION SIX: WEAPONRY

AFTER YOUR DAY’S TRAINING FEEL FREE TO DO AS YOU WISH

BUT DO NOT!

1. ENTER VENESERON CITY BEFORE FIRST NOTIFYING AN

INSTRUCTOR

2. PERFORM PAINFUL MAGIC OR VIOLENCE ON ANOTHER

VENATOR

3. PLAY JEWELBALL, TWINSPHERE, ARENA-BATTLE OR ANY

OTHER DANGEROUS GAME IN A CONFINED SPACE

IT PROBABLY WON’T END WELL

Evan read the scroll over multiple times before it hit him. Just how many forms of sorcery are there?

The scroll alerted him to the cabinet he hadn’t yet opened. When he did it was only to find that a winged mouse had made it a home. The thing hissed at him before flying out the window.

“Holy crap,” Evan shook his head.

His cabinet contained a parchment map of the Fortress, money he didn't recognise, and several books such as Riding the Waves of Watermancy and Finding the Fifteen-Thousand Realms, Volume 35.

The money was a collection of coins differing in shape and colour. The green coins were triangular, whilst the purple ones were pentagons.

After he brushed his teeth, with bright orange toothpaste he was relieved still tasted of mint, Evan set off to learn magic.

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The day turned out to be a wondrous but chaotic affair, which left him in constant awe. His first session was illusion with Padrake Poniferous.

Evan found the correct corridor okay, but not the chamber entrance. A door-sized portrait hung on the wall, which depicted Padrake instructing a group of Venators.

Evan was confused until he saw two other Venators pass by him and walk right through the portrait. After they disappeared before him, they reappeared as painted figures in the picture itself.

Evan copied them and suddenly the portrait was behind him, showing the image of the corridor outside.

This is so weird!

Statues of clockwork golems stood either side of the portrait-door whilst Victorian gas lamps were in each corner of the room, metallic beetles buzzing around their light.

A grandfather clock on the wall puffed blue steam and Evan whistled when he saw the Airship hovering in place just below the ceiling.

Even the suit Padrake wore was clockwork, with cogs for cufflinks and two clocks on his shoes, the laces serving as clock hands. Why he needed two clocks, Evan didn’t know.

As the training commenced, Padrake thought up a theory for why Evan couldn’t perform magic unless being attacked.

“If both times you've used sorcery you've been angry or scared, then you need a powerful emotion to trigger your magic,” Padrake proposed.

“Maybe,” Evan said uncertainly.

“Let’s see, shall we?”

Before Evan could speak, Padrake waved his hands.

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The room vanished and Evan was plunged into a dark tunnel. Out of the gloom a scarlet reptilian monster loomed into view, swaying from side to side eerily, its abhorrent eyes burning a hole into Evan’s own.

Stricken, Evan found flames shooting from his fingertips. The illusion vanished and he was back in the training chamber. Scorch marks covered the wall beside him, mere inches from a wide-eyed Xavier whose spiky hair was smoking slightly.

“Yes, this is quite common.” Padrake giggled. “Rookie magic-users usually need a strong emotion to harness their power, fear, anger, love, or even jealousy. Eventually you’ll be able to harness your abilities whenever you need them.”

Evan’s next class was Anatomy. This chamber was in the style of ancient Egypt, with hieroglyphics scrawled on sandstone walls and statues of ancient pharaohs lining the walls. A giant sphinx statue sat at the back of the room, its eerily human eyes appearing to watch Evan's every movement.

Master Greller introduced himself by transforming his arm into a broadsword and lopping off his other arm, before promptly growing it back. Several Novices screamed.

After testing, it was determined Evan had neither control over Earth element or healing sorcery. To his shock, Evan passed in everything else. He thought he'd been hopeless, especially in the Alchemy and Water element classes.

In weaponry, however, Evan surprisingly excelled. He'd begun training with his enchanted sword and could wear the enchanted armour Venators wore on missions.

The blood-red leather suit moulded to his body, skin-tight without feeling like it at all.

Venators could wear the armour for protection under clothing if they had to blend in somewhere like on Earth. Now, instead of worrying he would accidentally chop someone’s arm off, Evan could train as hard as he could.

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He was shown the basics in axe, spear, and bow and also learned about the different enchantments Venators used. One of the bows was equipped with poison arrows so strong it could kill an elephant within seconds, whilst a dagger had been imbued with a spell powerful enough to disintegrate armour. Evan still preferred Ruaden over the other weapons though.

Each of his training sessions had a large class of Venators, so Evan hadn't learned the names of everyone. He did get to know a few though, like the ditzy Emillia Lantley, who Evan almost beheaded in weaponry. There was also the sports-mad Tristan Chase and the cousins Blake and Arianna Silcorn, who were from a huge family of Venators. Finally, was Xavier Ichles, who appeared to be inseparable with Izekiel Irk.

Where Xavier was short and skinny, Izekiel was over six-foot, with a shaved head and biceps bigger than most people's thighs. As a Yurod alien, Izekiel’s appearance was particularly extraordinary. He resembled a human, but with tough grey skin and three small silver nodules above each eyebrow. He was very quiet, but kind.

There were a few trainees who weren’t entirely human, like Jimmy Revlin, a Halfling who called himself the quaterling. Jimmy came up to Brandon-Big Foot's belly-button. Brandon himself was over seven-feet tall, due to his grandfather being a Mandon giant.

As the second day rolled around, a new scroll materialised in Evan’s room with a fresh schedule:

TODAY’S TRAINING SCHEDULE FOR EVAN UMBRA

BREAKFAST

SESSION ONE: FIRE ELEMENT

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SESSION TWO: CURSE BREAKING

SESSION THREE: ALCHEMY AND ENCHANTMENT

LUNCH

SESSION FOUR: AIR ELEMENT

SESSION FIVE: ENERGY CONTROL

SESSION SIX: EXTENDED SORCERY

Evan took a deep breath when he realised today’s magic instruction was almost completely different to yesterdays. Evan reckoned most lessons would be struck off his schedule once they realised he couldn’t do much.

Each castle had a giant spiral escalator that stretched from the bottom floor all the way to the top, with stops on each floor to quickly jump off. But Evan still found navigating around the enormous Fortress tricky. Luckily, other Venators showed him the way if he got lost, which he did several times.

He bumped into Tyrell the morning he was late for his first fire training session, something he'd been looking forward too. He followed the Fortress map, but whether it was the many bridges he had to cross, or the hundreds of passageways, he’d ended up at Dragonrock Keep instead of Titantower.

Tyrell kindly gave Evan fresh directions, leading him to a cavern in the castle’s underground tunnels.

The Fortress was filled with a variety of creatures who’d wandered up from the city. Fortunately, a few of them also came to Evan's aid. When he got lost looking for his Anatomy session, one of the living statues gave him directions from his perch atop a cloister. Then, when Evan was late for water element training, he asked aloud,

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“Where is it?” whilst simultaneously stumbling into a two-headed giant who roared,

“Other way!”

As Evan scarpered back down the passage the giant's much smaller head squeaked,

“No idiot, turn left.”

It didn’t help that the training chambers were in the oddest of places. Earth element was held inside a giant hill and Energy Control took place inside a starship stationed on the battlements of Swordstone castle.

Strangest of all was when Evan took a wrong turning in Dragonrock Keep. He found himself in a hallway filled with dozens of doors either side. He pushed one open to find a room furnished solely by a gravy boat on a pedestal.

As Evan entered, the gravy boat began to smoke and a bizarre being coalesced. He was huge, with silver skin wrought by mossy green tattoos and a spiked tail. Atop his head were golden horns and his eyes were white film. His body was translucent and a trail of mist linked him to the gravy boat.

“Be you lost, hunter?” his inhumanly deep voice echoed around the chamber.

“Um, yeah. I don't suppose you know where Air element takes place, do you?”

The genie's laughter boomed. “I will always help those of Veneseron who lose their way. Padrake named me Grand Graham the Guide. Take a left off this corridor and you shall discover your destination.”

“Er, okay. Thanks Graham.”

The rest of his first week sorcery training went fairly well. Evan found he had quite a talent with the fire element. The only blip was in Illusion training where he was thrust into a cave with a zombie trying to scoop out his brains. Evan managed to fitfully conjure the water element and freeze the walking corpse where it stood. When

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the illusion was lifted, however, Evan discovered he'd in fact frozen Xavier, who resembled a human icicle.

By week’s end he also managed to wield magic in an area other than the elements and without feeling a strong emotion. It was in Anatomy where a delighted Greller had beamed at him after Evan managed to turn his little finger into a pencil. It wasn’t strong magic, but Evan was thrilled all the same.

He often thought of Gran during the hard days training. He wished she could see him now. Now he was doing something worthwhile, preparing to one day save lives.

All he’d ever wanted was for her to be proud.

Jed vowed to Evan that he'd begin magical training too, and sure enough by the end of the week he found Jed in his Fire element class.

“What’re you doing here?” he exclaimed.

“Getting my ass whipped by Domnican got on my nerves so much that when I jumped up and down in frustration I caused a mini earthquake.”

“You’ll still get your ass whipped, even now you’re learning magic.” Evan grinned.

“Yeah I know,” Jed sighed. “But hopefully I can pull off your trick and send them flying through the air. Once I learn how.”

They celebrated Jed’s magical breakthrough by going to Ethanc’s, but it wasn’t long until Jed noticed the dark elf waitress and his eyes lit up.

“Here Evan, as my good friend you’ll need to know how to charm the fairer sex.

So, sit back and learn how to flirt from the master.”

Jed gave Evan a wink before swaggering over to the bar and leaning towards the pretty waitress.

“Oi, wench, be a good girl and give me your finest mug of…”

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Jed cut off as she promptly dumped a mug of Mavla in his face.

“See,” Jed spluttered as he ambled back over, “works every time.”

*

Once Brooke had performed sorcery, she knew she wanted to stay at Veneseron.

When Padrake asked her to make the choice there’d been little hesitation.

She'd miss her family and friends, but she couldn't return to Earth